A tramp stamp that I can get behind … HONK!

Hey, what’s this? Skeptic nudy calendars. How cool is that. Proceeds go to Skepticon 3. Don’t just drool over April, buy the calendar.

And for all you man-loving skeptics, check out the male version!

***UPDATE*** The male model in the clip I posted has asked me to respectfully remove his picture. I was tempted to post it again front and center, but I’m listening to the angel on the other shoulder on this one.

That naked dude in a tie should send me a thank you gift basket.

Quote of the day, Jon Stewart: “Someone has to be the zoo keeper”

“The way I always explain it is: When you go to the zoo and a monkey throws his feces, it’s a monkey. But when the zoo keeper’s standing right there and he doesn’t say ‘bad monkey,’ somebody’s gotta be the zoo keeper.”

– Jon Stewart from here.

***

Thanks Julie!

A tall glass of orange juice, please … hold the pomp

Image via Wikipedia

I get email, too, you know.

Today I got an email from a high school friend. Let’s call her Jane.

Jane explained that she googled me and read my blog for about 2 hours. She wrote that she was writing as a friend, and that she did not want to debate. She explained that despite my hope to carry on the conversation between belief and non, I alienate believers or opposing viewpoints with a pompous attitude.

She said I was insulting, disdainful and a handful of other pejorative descriptors.

She made a great case for, beside the word “pompous” in the dictionary, there’s a photo of Jeremy and I couldn’t agree more. I am pompous, belittling, insulting, nasty, vile, bigoted … let’s see what am I forgetting?

Quotable quotes

She said a couple of things which I want to quote her on. Jane said,

The whole concept of love is the greatest proof for me that God exists.

Wait a minute. I’m pompous?

If love is the greatest proof for god’s existence, that proves that it’s the Christian god?

If love is the greatest proof for the Christian god, keep that love away from me.

If I met Jesus, I wouldn’t forgive him for insulting humanity’s intelligence. I definitely wouldn’t love him. I’d ask him, “How did you convince your followers that if you killed yourself and brought yourself back to life, and had some guys write it in books and one dude who never met you lead most of the pack? How did you do it? That was an amazing con job, Jesus. Tell me how you did it.”

Christians boast all the time how awesome Jesus is. He listens. Heals them when they’re sick. Cheers them when they’re down.

Okay, I’ll give him “good listener.” When I was a Christian he listened like no one I’ve ever talked to. He never butts in or waits to talk.

Honk

God is Jesus and Jesus is God, right? Did Jane read what God did in the Old Testament? Is she not aware of the dogma and man-made concept of hell? Jesus has premeditated the death and torment of every non-believer to ever live. He knows he’s going to do it. And Christians KNOW that he knows it, and they still love the guy. They even call that “unconditional love” and try to convince non-believers that it’s so.

And I’m pompous.

I’d like a serving of unconditional love without condition, thank you very much. I don’t have friendships with murderers, liars, or thieves. Why would I start now? The concept of hell is so easily researched and disputed, I’m not quite sure how anyone still believes in it anymore.

Jane explained that there is no scientific explanation for love, nor for the love she experienced with her children. But she knows god exists because love exists.

Foobar.

Science gives great explanations for love. Read a fucking book.

(I know, pompous right? Yikes!)

Science is so pompous to consider evolution as the explanation for the origin of life. It’s not pompous that the Christian explanation for life that god made a man from dirt, and made a woman from his rib, and threw in a talking snake, and that these idiots’ disobedience is why there is evil in the world.

And holy shit, I’m the one who’s pompous?

The second thing she said that stuck out was (emphasis mine):

Lastly, I have a strong spiritual heritage in my family as you know. My grandfather is the most pure-spirited person I know and he has committed his entire life to not just following Christ but leading people to Him for the past 60-some years. He has witnessed angels and demons and miracles. I know there is more to this world than what we see partially based on what I have learned from my family and their experiences, too.

I’m pompous?

Why would god be so slimy that he would only reveal his angels, demons and miracles to a person already seeking those things out?

I don’t know either. I’m asking you.

Jane “knows” there’s more than what we see, and I’m pompous. Jane is hogging the only guy in the world who has proof of angels, demons and miracles.

I couldn’t bring myself to spell all this out in an email response to Jane. I wussed out and wrote one line:

Thanks for taking the time to read the blog and to write a response … at such an early hour, too.

I signed off, and walked my dog Talulah. I have more to do then deal with such magical thinking. Frankly, I could write for pages. But what good would that do to someone who has a direct link to the god of the universe? I’m the pompous one who depends on reality to base my decisions in life. I’m the pompous one who doesn’t want relationships with Jesus.

And my wife Tina physically and audibly thanks me often for just that.

I love love that I can feel, touch, taste, smell and hear.

I’m pompous that way.

Bible has some shocking ‘family values’

In an article by Michael Coogan, professor of religious studies at Stonehill College, he writes:

When talking about so-called family values, pastors, popes, and politicians routinely quote the Bible as if it were an unassailable divine authority — after all, they assume, God wrote the Bible, and therefore it is absolutely and literally true.

But that is a misconception. As the Bible itself makes clear, its authors were human beings, many of whom are named: David, Isaiah, Luke, and Paul. These human writers wrote over the course of more than a thousand years, and their writings reflect their own views and the values they shared with their contemporaries. So it’s not surprising that inconsistencies are frequent in the Bible, both trivial and profound.

Although Jews and Christians, individually and collectively, have for the last 2,000 years accepted the Bible as authoritative in principle, in practice many of its values have been rejected. On issues such as slavery, no one today would maintain that slavery is acceptable, even though, according to the Bible, it was a divinely sanctioned institution. In the debates about slavery in the 19th century those opposed to its abolition cited the Bible in support of their position, but despite such biblical warrant, their views were renounced.

According to biblical law, a father could sell his daughter as a slave, and the last of the Ten Commandments lists as off-limits a neighbor’s possessions — his house, wife, slaves, and livestock. But the majority of modern Jews and Christians no longer accept the biblical view of women as men’s property and hence subordinate to them, as they have also abandoned the biblical practice of polygamy.

Read on.

Thanks, Luis!

Rand Paul Supporters Stomp Liberal Activist

Love and Compassion.

 

Video: Pre-blessed food!

Via Atheist Media